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METHODISM IN INDIA. So 


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Address Delivered before the General Missionary Com- 
mittee, at Providence, R. I., November, 1898. 


BY REV. J. F. GOUCHER, D.D. 


Mr. CrarrMAn: The discussion of our foreign missionary work 
thus far may be classified under three general heads: 

1. The reconstructive work in Europe, South America, and 
Mexico, where we are confronted by moral ruin intrenched within 
a perverted or nerveless form of Christianity. We have planted 
Methodism in the midst of those peoples and so established our 
Church that by contrast, by suggestion, by direct teaching, and by 
the inherent force of vital godliness it is working to their reforma- 
tion in Germany and elsewhere, and the State Churches have 
been vitalized to the extent at least of introducing Sunday schools, 
reopening prayer meetings, requiring morality and a degree of 
spirituality of their pastors, and insisting upon personal experience 
among their members. Even the Roman Catholic Church has 
been greatly modified in its methods. 

2. The occupancy of Africa, for which Bishop Hartzell has 
pleaded with such eloquence and pathos, is work in the stage of 
foundation-laying. Every dollar we invest there will need patient 


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watching and will have to be supplemented in the years to come. 


by ten or ascore of additional dollars before it will secure large 
returns, 

3. The work in Asia, which is in the stage of fruitage. Our 
hearts have been thrilled by the reports from Eastern Asia, and we 
know by observation in some of those fields that similar state- 
ments might be multiplied. But glorious as the tidings are from 
the Sunrise Kingdom, the Hermit Nation, and the Celestial Empire, 


they but suggest the larger opportunities and almost measureless _ 


results in Southern Asia, where ‘‘the harvest truly is plenteous, 
but the laborers are few.” Years ago Dr. Daniel Curry said, 
‘‘India is our greatest mission field;” and measured by spiritual 


destitution, by responsiveness, or by success, Southern Asia is our 
greatest mission field to-day. Forty-six per cent of all the 
communicants the Methodist Episcopal Church has in all the 
world, outside of the United States, including Eastern Asia, 
Europe, South America, Mexico, and Africa—forty-six per cent of 
all the communicants we have gathered in all our foreign missions 
are in Southern Asia; sixty-six per cent of all the converts added 


to our Church last year in the foreign fields were gathered in 


Southern Asia; of all the Sunday schools maintained in the for- 
eign mission fields of our Church fifty-eight per cent are in 
Southern Asia; and of all the day. schools—primary, secondary, 
collegiate, and theological—which are under the authority of our 
Church in its foreign mission fields, eighty-two per cent are in 
Southern Asia. More than three hundred millions of people are 
not-only accessible to the Gospel in that field, but our missionaries 
work under the protection and with the cooperation of an Anglo- 
Saxon government, and the natives manifest a hunger indescriba- 
ble and insatiable and an urgency for our instruction unparalleled 
elsewhere. We have had to repel seekers to keep them from over- 
whelming us. 

Hasan Raza Khan, one of the native presiding elders of the 
Northwest India Conference, called the workers of his district 
together after the adjournment of the Conference in 1897 to con- 
sult about and pray for their work, and he felt compelled to say 
to them: ‘‘This must be our policy for this year: We must not 
seek a convert; we must not add one by baptism. We must make 
it our special duty to look to the building up of the Church, and 
not permit more to come in, for we cannot give the care they need 
to those we have, and we dare not receive any more with our 
‘present pastoral force.” But in spite of their purpose they were 
compelled to baptize during the year one thousand two hundred and 
twenty-six, mostly men and women, who would take no refusal. 

When Dr. William Butler went to India he had free and frequent 
conferences with the representatives of other Protestant missions 
and of the civil service. He laid before them the purpose of our 
Church to establish a mission, and the consensus of all with 


whom he conferred was that the Northwest Provinces and Oudh 


should be occupied as the special field of the Methodist Episcopal 

Church. This territory was bounded on the south and west by 

the Ganges River, on the north by the Himalaya Mountains, and 
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on the east by the boundaries of Oudh. It extended four hundred 
and fifty miles in one direction and one hundred and twenty 
miles in the other. It was occupied by about eighteen millions 
of people, nearly all of whom spoke one language, and there was 
not a Christian missionary in all that field. He was congratulated 
on the simplicity of our problem because it was said our mis- 
sionaries would be required to learn only one language, and this 
would give facility of interchange among the pastors and inex- 
pensiveness of schools and publications. In 1857, at the close of 
the Sepoy mutiny, we had only one native Christian in all 
Southern Asia, and he had been borrowed from our American 
Presbyterian friends to serve as an interpreter and helper for Dr. 
Butler. Those were days of small things. 

Now we have 77,963 communicants, 635 native pastors, 31,879 
scholars in our day schools, and 83,229 youth in our Sunday 
schools. We are already carrying on work in more than forty 
languages and dialects, and our missions reach from Bombay on 
the west to Calcutta on the east, a distance of seventeen hun- 
dred miles; and from Karachi on the northwest to Singapore on 
the southeast, a distance of four thousand miles; and there are 
multitudes crying to us for help for hundreds of miles beyond 
on every side. 

How came we to pass beyond our original boundaries? We 
could not help it. By strange providences, which we did not 
anticipate nor understand, our first work was with the low-caste 
and outcast people. Since then we have had converts and faithful 
pastors from nearly all castes, including the highest. This caste 
system is the most thoroughly organized example of selfishness 
ever established by Satanic malevolence among men. For centuries 
it has maintained itself and been the greatest curse of India, but 
Christ has laid upon it the compulsion to serve in establishing his 
kingdom, and in these latter years the greatest triumphs of Chris- 
tianity have been along caste and family lines. The system is being 
rapidly disintegrated by the forces of a Christian civilization. 

When the Gospel was first preached to the low-caste people 
what a message it was to them! They had been taught to believe 
that they were not men, but only things. For generations they 
were compelled, if they met a lordly Brahman in the road, to cast 
themselves down in the dust that their shadow might not fall upon 
him; and if a Brahman passed while they were in the field, they 

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were expected to turn away lest their eye might rest upon him and 
bring evil to him. They possessed nothing which a high-caste 
person might not appropriate if he desired. A high-caste person 
might kill any one of them as you would crush a worm, and there 
was no redress. If any low-caste person repeated a passage from 
one of the sacred books, his tongue was to be cut out. They had 
no hope in this world nor in the world to come, except as they 
served somebody of higher caste. Great Britain has changed 
much of this, for wherever the Union Jack flies there is a recogni- 
tion of manhood and the administration of justice. For these low- 
caste people to hear that they are men, that Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God, is their elder brother and upon the throne, that he 
himself would be their intercessor with God, and God would hear 
them pray and would communicate to them the evidence of his 
love, was a Gospel of inexpressible sweetness. No wonder they 
heard the Gospel gladly and came flocking to our altars. 

Some months ago Dr. Rudisill drove in a gharry some miles out 
of Madras and stopped to sing a hymn in the bazaar of a vil- 
lage. A crowd gathered about him, and he commenced to preach 
to them, telling them that they were men, and that God came in 
Jesus Christ to redeem them. It produced such an excitement 
that it looked as though they would mob him, but it proved to be 
only the eagerness of the people to gather closer and hear the 
message, As he told them the words of life they said, ‘‘ It is not 
true.” He said, ‘‘ Yes, itis true. It is the word of God.” ‘‘Then,” 
they said, ‘‘if it is true, and you knew it, why did you not tell us 
sooner?” I leave you to answer that question if you can. 

These low-caste people work for five cents a day. If they are 
good carpenters, stone masons, or skilled mechanics, they may get 
eight or ten cents per day, and they have to support themselves 
and their families out of their wages. Many of them have no 
local possessions, and when a famine threatens or economic con- 
ditions change they travel wherever they think they can find work 
or better their conditions. So many of them are continually on 
the move, As those into whose hearts God had put the evidence - 
of their acceptance, and in whose living he was writing the prof 
of their transformation, went seeking work, they passed over the 
Ganges. Millions of the same caste were there. They could not 
keep still. As they told the story of Jesus and his love and gave 
such evidences of improvement in manhood and consciousness of 


fellowship with God the great mass of people beyond the Gange 
sent to our missionaries begging them, ‘‘ Come and teach us tus 
new doctrine.” This desire became so importunate it could not 
longer be unheeded, and a man was sent to those beyond the 
Ganges. He was a converted Mohammedan, Hasan Raza Khan 
by name. <A Christian gentleman in this country furnished him 
the support of four primary Christian schools, and these he placed 
in four villages some distance apart. He visited these schools 
frequently, talked with the children, went to their homes and 
talked with their parents, followed up the inquirers, and when- 
ever one of the young men who had been converted learned to 
read, he gave him a small school in some neighboring village. At 
the end of five years—that is, in 1890—the work of the Lord had so 
multiplied in his hands that it took all of his time to go around 
supervising it. He had developed a district and he was appointed 
presiding elder. 

Seven years later, in 1897, he had Christians in over seven hun- 
dred and fifty villages, and there were eleven thousand and fif- 
ty-six communicants in his district. We attended his District 
Conference, and there were one hundred and eleven workers 
present. His wife, who had been a purdah or high-caste 
Zenana woman, held a District Conference of the Woman’s 
Foreign Missionary Society at the same time in a neighboring 
tent. She had sixty-one women present and presided with great 
grace and efficiency. All of these one hundred and seventy- -two 
‘ workers, with the exception of fifteen or twenty, had been gath- 
ered from among the converts of this district, and ten or twelve 
years before they were heathens. As he represented his work he 
said, ‘‘Give me the subpastors, young men who would cost about 
thirty dollars a year, to look after the converts, and I could bap- 
tize fifty thousand within the next eighteen months.” This state- 
ment was printed in the papers and caused a great discussion. 
Some said, “It is the exaggerated utterance of an enthusiast.” 
Others said, ‘‘ It shows how Methodists make converts by simply 
putting a little water on their heads,” and others said they ‘‘be- 
lieved it was true, for in large areas whole castes are practically 
Christianized.” When Hasan Raza Khan came tothe Annual Con- 
ference about two months later at Allahabad he said: ‘‘ At the 
Mela at Hathras I said I could baptize fifty thousand converts in 
eighteen months, if I had the subpastors to look after and in- 

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struct them. I have been around my district since, have asked 
the pastors, subpastors, pastor-teachers, and leaders to make out 
lists of those whom they knew. had abondoned idolatry and were 
desiring to be baptized. I have studied the lists carefully and I 
must say IJ wasmistaken. There are fifty-five thousand asking for 
baptism within the bounds of my district.” 

We have a new district in Central India, including a large 
aboriginal population, where the opportunities for Christian con- 
quest are still more wonderful. 

There were three great incursions into India before the English 
‘‘went up to possess the land.” 

1. The Kolarians entered through the passes on the northeast 
and spread along the base of the Himalayas. 

2. The Dravidians entered through the passes on the north- 
west, and the two streams crossed each other in Central India, and 
the Dravidians, being the stronger, broke up the Kolarians, thrust 
them aside and went forward, establishing themselves in the south. 

3. The Aryans came also from the northwest and gradually 
spread over North India through the valley of the Ganges, reach- 
ing Bengal on the east and southward to the north of the Deccan. 
Because Central India was not so well adapted to their modes of 
agriculture all these great incursions swept around it and left it 
occupied by the aborigines. 

Last winter Bishop Foss and Bishop Thoburn constituted the 
Godavery District in Central India, including about three millions 
of people, and appointed the Rev. G. K. Gilder presiding elder. 
In the north Rev. C. B. Ward is doing some good work. At one 
or two other points a commencement has been made, but the 
larger part of this district has had no sustained missionary influ- 
ence in it at all. In a letter received from Brother Gilder, report- 
ing his first trip through his district, he wrote me that he found 
three hundred thousand aborigines who had abandoned idolatry 
and intemperance, giving up both liquor and tobacco, and had 
banded themselves “together under the ‘title of the “The Holy 
Name.” They said to him, ‘‘It is our business to do those things 
which the Godman, Jesus, would have us do if he were here 
among us.” They had come to this purpose through the leaven- 
ing influence of the Gospel, filtering in among them, without the 
work of a missionary. The low- caste people had gone out for 
work and brought back the message on their return, They said 

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to Brother Gilder, ‘‘Come, and we will hail you with gladness, and 
whole villages will accept Christian baptism, for it is the Christ we 
want.” Who can measure the probable sweep of redeeming grace 
among these people if we would only teach their eager inquirers 
who are pleading for or groping after the knowledge of Jesus ? 

I may not at this time speak of Burma or Malaysia, but the 
conditions in North India, South and Central India, which I have 
briefly outlined, are samples of the opportunities which invite and 
the progress which demands our ministries all over Southern Asia. 
They are not exceptional in kind, although they may be somewhat 
exceptional in degree, but all about our workers there are scores of 
thousands, yes, literally hundreds of thousands, who are disgusted 
with their false religions and awakened toa desire for Christianity, 
restless and eager to be indoctrinated and converted. 

You are wondering, when persons who have been pagans are 
baptized by the hundreds, what kind of Christians they make. 
It is a natural inquiry, and I will tell you. Over in the Bombay 
Conference several years ago one of our missionaries commenced 
working among the Marathis in the city of Bombay. The Gujerat 
language is cognate with the Marathi, and a number of the 
Gujerats attended the service and were converted. The Gujerat 
Province, from which they came, reaches from about ninety miles 
north of Bombay along the coast to the northwest a distance of 
four hundred and fifty miles, and has a population of eleven 
millions. It contains thousands of villages with from five hundred 
to forty thousand inhabitants and three cities of over one hundred 
thousand each. Large numbers of Gujerats of the poorest and 
lowest caste go to Bombay for a term of years to get the higher 
wages given there for scavenger work. ‘Their families remain in 
the Gujerat villages, to which they ultimately return. A number 
of the Gujerats converted in the Marathi meetings having accu- 
mulated fifty dollars or more, were relatively wealthy and returned 
to their people. So we soon had Christians in a number of the 
villages within twenty-five miles of Baroda. The love of Jesus 
burned in their hearts as a fire, and they proclaimed the un- 
searchable riches of redeeming grace. The story repeated itself 
as elsewhere, and their neighbors said: ‘* We want fellowship with 
Christ and membership in the Church. Send us a teacher and 
give us baptism.” In November, 1894, a native pastor was sent to 
look after them and stationed in Kasar. By the beginning of 

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1896 we had about one thousand Gujerat members and proba- 
tioners, and they were organized into a presiding elder district 
under Rev. E. F. Frease. One and a half years later he reported, 


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at the Annual Conference of 1897, 2,471 communicants in 108 — 
villages, with 131 members in his District Conference, 109 of whom 


had been selected from among his converts. 


I told Brother Frease if he would arrange for a Mela on his | 


district on the first day of December, I would be there, and he 
said he would do it. I said to him, ‘‘ Have two or three hundred 


converts ready for baptism, for I want to see a service of that 


kind.” The first of December was in the midst of harvest time, 
and every service the natives attended cost them a meal, but two 
thousand or more were present, of whom about fifteen hundred 


were Christians. Some had walked five, fifteen, thirty, and even — 


forty miles to get there, and had to walk home again after it was 
over. They came, dressed in their bright costumes, in squads of 
from three to thirty, from their various villages, carrying their 
frugal meal and singing the old bhajans or ghazels with Chris- 
tian words. It was my rare privilege to preach to them at the 
morning service the story of Jesus and his love, and they listened 
with more apparent intelligence and enthusiasm-than the average 
congregation in this country. It was to mea joy inexpressible 
to speak to human souls for whom my Lord had shed his blood, 


many of whom were hearing for the first time the message of — 


divine love. Their responsiveness and the eagerness with which 
they leaned forward to catch the next phrase as the message was 
unfolded was to me inspiring and a rich recompense. 

In the afternoon we held the baptismal service. Many came for- 
ward to receive the ordinance who were denied it and sent back to 
the congregation. J asked what that meant, and they said, ‘‘ None 


are permitted to be baptized whose names are not on the list 


which the pastors have prepared after visiting them in their 


homes, instructing them for months and examining them.” Then 


Bishop Thoburn asked them many questions, breaking up our 
Ritual into short phrases, and adding such practical inquiries as — 
he thought wise, such as: ‘‘Have you given up the worship of — 
idols? Have you any evidences of idolatry in your home? Have — 


you any about your person? Have you given up stealing? Have 
you given up lying? Will you ever steal or lie again under any 
conditions? Will you ever use ghali any more?” (That is a 

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form of speech very vile and indecent, in which they abuse the 
ancestors of those whom they hate.) ‘‘Do you believe in God? 
Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Will you trust him and him 
only to save you?” and many others. Then Bishop Foss asked 
for the Apostles’ Creed, which they repeated with as much 
unanimity, exactness, earnestness, and apparent appreciation of 
its meaning as any congregation I ever heard. Brother Frease 
said, ‘‘If you desire it, they will repeat the Ten Commandments, 
the Twenty-third Psalm, and the Lord’s Prayer as well.” You 
wonder how they learned this body of truth. They had been 
gathered by the leaders in their villages and instructed. There 
is great significance in the request of the apostles, ‘‘ Lord, teach 
us to pray.” Pagans are never taught by their religion to pray. 
They know nothing of breathing out the longings of their hearts 
to a loving God who hears. All they know is to repeat.forms of 
words which to them ofttimes have no meaning. So the Chris- 
tians and inquirers gather around the leader at some appointed 
place in the village, after their frugal evening meal, sing hymns, 
listen to the reading of the Scriptures, and have conversations and 
prayers. Until they are well developed in Christian attainments 
they have village prayers and not family prayers. 

It is difficult to pretend that you are a Christian in India, It 
is an interesting fact that, while the baptized area in this country 
is much larger than the spiritual area, in India the spiritual area 
is much larger than the baptized area. When a man performs 
pugee, or his morning worship, he has the sign of his god stamped 
upon his forehead. He bears this mark as evidence of his loyalty 
to his religion. When he becomes a worshiper of Christ the mark ° 
is left off. From that time heis a marked man. The heathen 
will not associate with -him unless he bears this mark, and the 
Christians will not accept him with the mark upon him. When 
he becomes a Christian his pagan and Mohammedan neighbors 
boycott him in every possible way, and will not even permit him 
to draw water from the village well when any of them desire to 
use it. When he wants water he must go out stealthily after 
midnight to the well and get it. The converts are persecuted in 
every way which Satanic ingenuity and priestly craft can devise. 
We were told there was not one candidate who presented himself 
for baptism that day at Bahlaj who had not suffered persecution 
for his devotion to our Lord. Who would have refused them 

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baptism ? We did not, and there were two hundred and twenty- 
five of them. That is asample of the kind of ‘‘raw heathen” 
who are being brought into fellowship with the Church of God by 
our mission workers throughout India. What becomes of them ? 
They become Christian men or women. When we asked Dr. E. 
W. Parker that question he said, ‘‘ With the care we ordinarily 
give them more than ninety-five per cent develop into earnest 
and loyal Christians, a larger per cent than is usual from among 
those gathered in the revival services in America,” 

Hasan Raza Khan, the presiding elder, of whom I spoke a few 
moments ago, is a specimen of the men who have been developed 


by the Spirit of God through our missions. He was a Moham- . 


medan before he was converted. His support does not cost our 
Missionary Society a pice. 

The Kasgunj and Agra Districts united in a Mela or camp 
meeting, the latter part of last November, under the joint direc- 
tion of the presiding elders, Rev. J. E. Scott and Hasan Raza 
Khan. During the camp each held his District Conference and 
a self-support meeting. The self-support meeting of the Kasgunj 
District interested me very much. They had banners, songs, 
speeches, and a collection for the maintenance of the Gospel in 
their midst. The natives present made offerings of cash, a 
goat, chickens, grain of various kinds, clothes, domestic utensils, 
toys, jewelry, and many other things with great liberality and 
enjoyment. One poor girl, who possessed nothing in this world 
but a piece of cotton cloth, which she wore wound about her 
person as her only garment, and one brass toe-ring, her only 
ornament, took off her toe-ring and gave it with gladness. After- 
ward the things so generously given were sold at auction, and I 
purchased that toe-ring as paralleling the widow’s mite and 
representing the greatest contribution I ever saw given to the 
Church. It was all she possessed with which she could part. 
When these offerings were completed Hasan Raza Khan said, ‘I 
purpose in my heart to continue trusting God and his people 
among whom I labor for my support, and will not accept a single 
rupee from the Missionary Society 6n my salary. If there are any 
of you who will trust God and his people rather than foreign 
rupees for your support, come and stand beside me in this per- 
sonal consecration.”” Eight men, pastors in this district, and four 
women, workers of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, 

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came out and stood beside him. He is living on forty rupees 
(about thirteen dollars) a month and trusting the people of his 
district to give it. He is a man among men, respected by for- 
eigners and natives alike. Because of his intelligence and influ- 
ence he was appointed one of the board of commissioners of her 
majesty’s government for the zillah in which he lives. Appreciating 
his ability and integrity, the board of commissioners said to him 
one day: ‘‘ We have chosen you as secretary to this board. Your 
work shall be limited to five hours per day; we will give you one 
hundred and twenty-five rupees per month” [more than three 
times what he was getting] ‘‘and the position will bring you large 
influence.” He promptly replied, without the slightest change of 
countenance, ‘‘I am secretary to the Lord Jesus, and I cannot 
accept any other office.” That is an illustration of the power of 
God to so transform a Mohammedan’s heart that he is able to 
account the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures 
of India. 

Samuel Tupper is the pastor of a circuit at Hardoi. His ancestors 
belonged to the scavenger, or lowest caste, and so he was doomed 
by the caste laws to be a scavenger. ‘There was no power on earth 
which could have caused him to rise out of his caste and become 
anything but a scavenger, but there was a power in heaven which 
could transform and elevate him. <A few years ago he was run- 
ning around clad in the somewhat inadequate folds of a single 
string; for the majority of the children of his caste, until they are 
five or six years old, are usually clad in nothing but their com- 
plexion, except occasionally when they wear a smile. He was 
brought into one of our schools and showed himself eager and apt to 
learn. He went from form to form: passed through the high school 
and went to the theological school. He graduated there relatively 
an educated man with a cultured intellect and great consecration. 

I have been frequently impressed with the fact that many of 
these India Christians possess four things directly the gift of | 
God: They have a personal experience. They know God, and 
they know that they know him. They have a personal commis- 
sion. God always gives a commission to every person to whom he 
gives an experience. They have a fixed purpose to accomplish 
their commission, and any man who does not have a purpose to 
persistently pursue his commission loses both his experience and 
his commission, And they have success, Because their purpose 

11 


keeps their effort in line with God’s commission he follows their 
lives with success. 

Let me make clear the fact that these India Christians have an 
experience. .At a camp meeting we attended I had a brother 
beside me who interpreted into my ear the testimonies of those 
who spoke. There was nothing slow at that camp meeting. I 
wrote many of their testimonies down as they were given, and 
these testimonies evidence freshness, frankness, and fervor. One 
hundred and eighteen spoke in forty-six minutes, and they had 
time for several spiritual songs, which they sang with great spirit. 
These Christians had not been in the service long enough to get 
stereotyped speeches. I will read you some of the testimonies, 
not selected, but just as I took them down: 

‘‘T know God has saved me, for, before God, my buying and 
selling is honest.” 

‘This is always before my mind: ‘If you are Christ’s, walk 
according to his Spirit.’” 

‘* Some say they were blessed here, and some say they were blessed 
in another place; but for me, Christ is blessing me all the time.” 

“As Christ said Satan had no part in him, soI can say my 
possessions are in no way connected with Satan.” 

‘Christ not only gives me the orders by which I am living, 
but he also fills my life with his peace.” 

‘‘T was a great sinner; but, according to his promise, now he 
is with me all the while.” 

‘* Since coming here I have been greatly blessed ;. for God has 
shown me things in my life that before I did not know were 
contrary to his will, and when the Spirit showed them to me I 
asked Christ, and he has taken them away.” 

‘*T testify that faith in Christ means life and peace.” 

‘‘Since coming here I have been feeding on the promises of 
Christ, and they have made my soul fat and strong, and I am 
anxious to show his power by my works.” 

‘Since coming here the Holy Spirit has let the light into my 
heart, and showed me snakes and dirt where I thought it was all 
clean. Now his love warms and cleanses it.” 

“Christ has saved me from the slavery and stain of sin, and I 
know my Saviour is upon the throne in heaven.” 


‘Since Christ has come into my life, though the outside has — 


been rough, the inside has been peace.” 
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These experiences were from the natives born in idolatry, con- 
_ verted by the power of God, transformed into loving fellowship, 
and given the language of the kingdom in which to interpret their 
experiences of God’s grace. I might continue them indefinitely. 

But I was telling you about Samuel Tupper. He was sent to 
Hardoi to open Christian work there. That zillah is forty miles 
square, and contains about nine hundred thousand native heathen. 
When he went to the bazaar he might tell the venders what he 
wanted, but then he had to put down his basket and step back 
while the man put into it what he pleased. Then the price was 
told him, and Tupper would lay his money down and walk off 
again. Though he was superior to any man in all that zillah, su- 
perior in intelligence, in culture, and in character, yet he had been 
born of a scavenger, and the bazaar men would not touch even 
money while Tupper touched it. It is a serious matter when the 
average man thinks money is too polluted to be touched. He 
found plenty of work among the people of his own caste to keep 
him happily occupied. He lived among them, and taught them 
by example as well as precept. After a while the bazaar men 
would say, ‘‘ Tupper, you need not walk away; you are not like 
others of your caste; we will take the money from your hand.” 
Later, on stormy days, when there was not much business doing, 
the bazaar men would say: ‘‘ Tupper, sit down, and tell us what 
you are teaching these people. Hverybody who comes under your 
- influence improves in cleanliness and becomes reliable.”” Then, as 
they had invited him, he would preach in the bazaar Christ and the 
resurrection. 

Tupper had the third blessing. We have heard a great deal 
about the first blessing, so called—that is, the blessing of justifica- 
tion. We have heard a great deal about the second blessing, so 
called—that is, the blessing of sanctification. Some people try to 
get the second blessing before they get the first; but it never 
comes that way. Some get the first so thoroughly that those 
who have not been told to the contrary never know they do not 
have both. But the third blessing is the rarest of them all. 
Sometimes it precedes the first and second, sometimes it comes 
_after them, and very frequently it does not come at all in this 
life. Itis the blessing,of common sense. Tupper had the grace 
of God working with this great blessing of common sense. He 
did not try to resist the inevitable. He did not say, ‘‘I am as 
13 


good as you are, and you must treat me as I think I ought to be 
treated.” He knew his work, and he knew his Lord. He knew 
he was not set for his own defense, but to do the work of God. 
He accepted the conditions within which he found himself, and 
magnified God by being a son of peace, and the grace of God 
made the dark lines in his environment furnish the opportuni- 
ties in which the high lights of his patient service shone most 
gloriously. Toe 

In 1890 the British government made careful inquiries to find 
some one who was sufficiently well educated, and who was 
thoroughly reliable, to take the census in that zillah. Many 
said, ‘‘If youcan get Tupper to accept the office, the work will 
be well done.” He was appointed, and that made it his duty to 
go into the homes of every Brahman and ask him, among other 
things, how many daughters he had. The queen herself could — 
not have asked a question more confusing to caste prejudice. 

The probabilities are, if I may be permitted to make a fore- 
cast, that the bishop will appoint Tupper a presiding elder at the . 
next Conference; because, in the magnificent work which he has 
gathered around him, he has developed a district. 

Then there is Jordan. He did not go through the theological 
school; but went through the college, and is a teacher. For two 
years in succession every student whom he sent up to the govern- 
ment examinations from the Moradabad high school, where he is 
second head master, passed. This caused quite a sensation among 
the Brahman and Mohammedan teachers; so they had large posters 
printed setting forth that Jordan was the son of a scavenger; 
that if he should correct one of the high-caste boys, it would 
pollute him; and if high-caste parents subjected their children to 
his influence, they would be in danger of the wrath of the gods, 
and many other such things. They had these posted all over the 
city, and when Jordan went to school the next morning he saw on 
the two doorposts, at the entrance of his school, these posters con- 
fronting him, as they did all the scholars that entered. He con- 
sulted with one of our missionaries as to what action he should 
take, and was told, ‘‘ You are not set for your own vindication: 
you are set for the defense of the Gospel, and God is pledged for 
your defense.” ‘Give place unto wrath: for vengeance is mine; 
I will repay, saith the Lord.” Jordan possessed the third blessing, 
and he went into the school without a word, taught as though 

14 


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nothing unusual had occurred, dismissed his school, and the 
scholars came the next day and the day after, and all went on as 
usual. But the posters attracted attention, and the Mohammedan 
and high-caste gentlemen of the city said: ‘‘What does all this 
mean? Who is this Jordan, and why are these things being posted 
about him just now?” It was replied that for the last two 
years every boy who had gone from his school to take the gov- 
ernment examinations had passed, and that these posters had 
been printed by the Brahman and other teachers because they 
thought the attendance at their schools might be injured by his 
success. ‘‘Ah,” said these shrewd men, ‘‘ is that so; every boy ?” 
“Yes.” ‘* Then that is where we will send our boys; for what 
we want is to be sure they will pass the government examina- 
tions ;” and the attendance increased within a month; so that from 
that time to this his school has been self-supporting, and not 
needed a rupee of missionary money. 

There was a girl, the daughter of a scavenger, who came into 
one of our schools and passed from form to form till she graduated; 
an earnest Christian young woman. Then she went to Agra, to 
the Lady Dufferin Medical College, and graduated there, and 
returned to Moradabad about the time that Jordan graduated. 
People had often said to him, ‘‘Why don’t you marry?” But 
his reply was, ‘‘I have not time. Iam studying.” She was more 
frequently asked the same question, and her reply was about the 
same. By one of those carefully adjusted providences by which 
God delights to help his own the chief nurse of the Lady Dufferin 
Hospital at Moradabad was taken ill, and there were some very 
critical cases needing specially careful attention. The physicians 
said, ‘‘We must have somebody who is trained to take this place 
at once.” Some one suggested: ‘‘ There is a young woman in the 
city who has recently graduated from the medical college at 
Agra. Maybe she might be secured for a week till we can find 
some one else.” She was asked, and consented to serve in the 
emergency; but at the end of the week the physicians said, ‘‘ We 
cannot let her go; she must stay at least a month longer.” So she 
stayed, and they made her head nurse of the hospital, giving her 
one hundred and twenty-five rupees a month, and she and Jordan, 
according to an arrangement made when they were children, got 
married. It was the same old story—praise the Lord—and is repeat- 
ing itself with delightful frequency. Mrs. Jordan still holds that 

15 


position, and treats the Brahman women, the American mission- 
aries, and the foreigners of the city, thoroughly respected by all 
because of her Christian character and scientific skill. 

These examples might be indefinitely multiplied; but let these 
suffice to assure you that the investments we have made in our 
missions in Southern Asia are more than justified by both the 
quantity and quality of their outcome as recorded in saintly man- 
hood and womanhood. If you are prosecuting mission work to 
secure fruitage in Christian character; if the greatest need ap- 
peals to your sense of obligation, and if the greatest opportunity 
of this earth appeals to you for cooperation, then appropriate for 
this mission to the full limit of your possibility. The amount 
asked is entirely inadequate to the demand. Our burdened, 
courageous, self-sacrificing missionaries in Southern Asia have 
only asked for $165,000, and it is proposed by your committee to 
reduce this to $145,000. This is about twenty-three per cent of 
the amount you are proposing to appropriate for foreign missions; 
and sixty-six per cent of all the converts gathered last year and 


forty-six per cent of all the communicants in our foreign missions ' 


are in this field. This latter sum will scarcely provide for the 
work as it is; certainly not. more, because the rupee has suffered 
such serious change in value. A dollar did buy three and one 
half rupees; it now buys but three and one tenth rupees, being a 
decrease of eleven per cent in its purchasing value. The little 
addition that is recommended above the amount given last year is 
required to make up for this change in the value of the rupee, with 
two other items added. One is for a man to take the place of Dr. 
Wilson, who died so suddenly, and a man must be sent to stand 
in the place he left vacant. I am persuaded you will not grant 
less than $145,000. It ought to be $200,000. 

I could gladly occupy a week or ten days in speaking of the 
opportunities, outcome, and obligations of this work, and then 
would have touched only the fringe of the ‘subject, so I may as 
well stop just here. 


ee ee 
RINDGE MISSIONARY LITERATURE DEPARTMENT, 


150 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, 


PRICE, FIFTY ae PER HUNDRED. 


